Snapbacks & Tattoos
by zombiekillah
Summary: AU. / The stranger is a millisecond away from him, so James gets ready to put his 'nice' voice on, 'Hello, I'm James and welcome to Starbucks, what would you like to order' on the tip of his tongue, but as soon as the guy looks up at him, he seems to forget his own name. To say he was cute would be an understatement. He was absolutely gorgeous. / Kendall/James.


hi! so, i wrote this _all today_ & for that, i am very proud of myself. c:

this was heavily, and i'm talking** heavily**, inspired by a photoshopped picture of kendall with a snapback on, with a hoodie & tattoos & just akjghskjgd.

like, the moment i saw it, i freaked out & the idea for this fic was born.

as you can, the picture is the poster for this story but you'd like the link to it, you can PM me. :)

i actually had an idea like this in my head for a while but that manip definitely gave me the motivation i needed. i'm contemplating whether i should put a second part to it or even make it a chaptered fic. it'd be fun but i just need to think of where i would go with it. :s

also, this is AU!

enough babbling. read on & hopefully enjoy!

* * *

The day is going by slow, too slow for James' liking, and he's bored out of his fucking mind, just sitting behind the counter with his ungodly thick rimmed glasses in front of his eyes, one hand holding up his head with his elbow on the counter. He's snapping his gum obnoxiously loud from said boredom, earning annoyed glares from the people scattered around the café but he could care less because he's the only one working, therefore he won't get in trouble, so he ignores them and keeps with his bad habit until a customer comes in.

Which hasn't occurred in 20 minutes.

James sighs and goes to put his head down on the table to take a mini-nap, until the door chimes. He groans softly and lifts his head, seeing some guy walk through the front door. From James' distance, he looks like a sketchpad, his head down with his hood up, hands in his pockets. James would be lying if he said he didn't think the guy would pull out a gun at any minute.

He walks closer and James observes his appearance, from what he can point out in a short amount of time: a purple zip-up, no shirt underneath, sleeves unevenly rolled up on each side; green snapback underneath the hood; tattoos on both biceps and arms, with some type of script, James' guesses, on his chest; dark wash skinny jeans and high top vans; from underneath the hood, he clearly notices the fairly large nose poking out; and that's it.

The stranger is a millisecond away from him, so James gets ready to put his 'nice' voice on, 'Hello, I'm James and welcome to Starbucks, what would you like to order?' on the tip of his tongue, but as soon as the guy looks up at him, he seems to forget his own name.

To say he was cute would be an understatement. He was absolutely _gorgeous_.

He had really nice golden hair and his eyes, oh my god, his _eyes_, were a stunning green, with… well, _really_ thick eyebrows but whatever, James could deal and of course, that nose that James noticed a few moments ago and then the next thing James knew, his eyes were trained on his lips and then to his defined jawline and then back to his lips and _oh my god was he smiling at me and whoa what the FUCK are those dimples holy SHIT_—

"Isn't this the part where you ask me what I want to order?"

James blinked out of his daze and pushed his glasses up further, clearing his throat. He opened his mouth to talk but stopped when he felt his gum almost fall out of his mouth. He made an embarrassing noise and felt his cheeks heat up as he quickly caught the piece of gum with his tongue, shoving it in the side of mouth. He looked at the blonde stranger again and saw that he was biting his lip to keep from smiling.

Cue the stuttering.

"Uh, um, I-I'm J-James, and wel-welcome to Starbucks, can I— uh, can you— _shit!_ —what would you like to have… to order?" He breathed out a distressed sigh. _Smooth._

"You're cute, can I have _you_?"

At that moment it was like his whole body lit on fire, forget about his cheeks. He was even starting to sweat. Was this really happening to him right now?

"Wh-what? I—"

The guy laughed, making James swoon, "I'll just have a tall strawberry smoothie, please."

James grabbed the necessary sized cup and pulled out a sharpie, trying not to smile at the fact that he had an excuse to know his name.

"Name?"

"Kendall," he said smoothly.

James quickly wrote it on the plastic cup, his usually neat cursive handwriting looking like it was written in a different language, from his nervousness. He pouted, but put the cup on the counter and turned to start making the smoothie.

James blinked and nodded, shakily getting the ingredients he needed, feeling those green eyes on him the whole time. He poured all of the necessary items in and blended it, holding the cover down tightly. He let the blender mix for another minute before he turned it off, and turned around to get the cup.

He grabbed the cup and made a terrible mistake of making eye contact. Kendall smiled, pearly white teeth and everything, and all James could do was this weird half smile thing. He cringes and hastily turns around, his face still burning awfully from being flustered. He poured the smoothie into a 'tall'-sized cup, along with a cover and straw. He turned around again, looking down at the smoothie, cringing at the letters scrawled on the cup.

"Sorry about my handwriting," he says shyly, holding out the smoothie, "it's not usually this messy."

"It doesn't matter," Kendall says softly. As he extends his hand, his eyes not leaving James', his fingers graze the brunette's, and James gets goosebumps all down his arms. His eyes flicker down to the cup to where their fingers are still touching and then back to Kendall, his hand retracted quickly as if he's just gotten burned.

Kendall puts the smoothie down and slides it closer to his own body gingerly, smiling warming at James. The nervous brunette clears his throat and nibbles on his bottom lip and starts pushing buttons on the cash register, calculating the price.

"Your total is $7.50."

Kendall takes his wallet out from his back pocket and sifts through it, pulling out a card.

"Do you take debit?" He asks. James nods, pointing to the card-swiper thing (after 6 months working here, James _still_ doesn't know what it's called) in front of the cash register. Kendall slides his card through it, pressing a few buttons and signing his signature on the screen with the pen attached.

James is staring at him the whole time, his eyes transfixed on his bottom lip, and the images of him sucking and biting at it don't stop until the receipt printer makes an ugly noise as the paper comes out. He rips out the receipt and takes out a pen from the counter behind him, putting the receipt on the counter, along with the pen.

"Signature here," he mumbles, pointing to the line next to the large 'x'. Kendall takes the pen and licks his lips before writing on the small piece of paper. James takes the time to put his hands on his cheeks, trying to transfer the coldness to his burning cheeks. It doesn't work.

"God dammit," he mumbles. Kendall stops writing and looks up, stealing a glance. James' hands drop instantly, eyes widening nervously. The blonde smirks and finishes writing, standing up straight.

"For you," he says, putting the receipt on the counter and sliding it toward James. The brunette furrows his eyebrows in confusion, his mouth opening and closing.

"I, uh, I don't—"

"Thanks for the smoothie," Kendall interrupts, picking up his beverage from the counter, taking a sip. He takes three slow steps backwards, winking at James before he turns around and walks out of the Starbucks.

James breathes out a large gust of breathe that he may or may not have been holding a few seconds ago. He closes his eyes and slumps over the counter, running a shaky hand down his face and back up to run through his slightly damp hair.

"Shit," he curses quietly. Then his eyes snap open and he scrambles to grab the receipt. Next to the 'x' is Kendall's signature, which is pretty much just a 'K' accompanied by scribbles. But then James sees it, and he feels butterflies crashing into the walls of his stomach.

"_The smoothie looks really good. :)  
You're too cute to not see again, so I'll be back tomorrow.  
See you then, James."_

* * *

sigh. this was really fun for me to write. i checked this over multiple times, surprisingly, but if there's any mistakes, feel free to tell me.

tell me what you think! if you hated it, loved it, etc. should i keep going with it? no? let me know!

oh, also! i've been thinking of maybe continuing _we're falling faster now_ since a few people wanted me to continue it. would you guys like that, too?

anywaaays, i love you guys so much! thanks for reading, lovelies c:


End file.
